Strategy, Marketing, and Coaching for a Boutique Owner

All right, well, lots of you are here, so we will get started. In case we haven't met yet, my name is Ashley. I'm the founder at the Boutique Hub and I love talking about boutique strategy. I'm sure you've heard me share a couple tips either on the podcast or on our YouTube channel or in our membership before. Lots of you also know Sarah Burks on our team who does a lot of coaching and mentoring of Boutiques. Also co founder of Retail Bootcamp. She's going to be going live several times this week as well. You're going to hear lots of lives from us this week, Abe, because it's mid January and this is when so many people fall off the wagon when it comes to New Year's resolutions and all of their goals for 2020. This is really a critical drop off point for a lot of people and we don't want that to happen to you. So we're going to get you as much information as we can. But also based on the topic today, I just, I really wish more people would think about this in their business and talk about it. And that is the struggle of the J month. So a lot of people in retail talk about how the J months, right? January, June and July are often sl. And then what happens when we hear this notion, right? We know that retail has got its cycles, it's got its ups and downs. We often will prepare for a slow January. And then what happens is January is slow because we prepared for it that way. And then we're trying to just constantly play catch up with February and March. It happens so often. So it's a critical point because this is where a J month can set in if you let it. So today I really want to talk to you about why J months are bullcrap. And you don't have to let J months happen in your business. Can I get a pre. If you think J months can be bull crap, here's why I believe that, yes, retail has its cycles, right? It has its ups and downs. But so much of what happens to us in business has a lot to do with our own mindset and how we approach our businesses. So just like anything in life, right, If I'm talking to my kids, if I'm talking to my daughter Hadley about preparing for a test and she says, you know what? I don't feel prepared. I'm going to suck at this test. What do you think is going to happen on that test? It's probably not going to go very well, right? And honestly, our businesses, a lot of times are the same way. If we feel like, oh, it's a J month, I'm going to suck at this J month. It's going to be slow. It's going to be slow. Those words kind of like the power of the I am statement, which you guys hear me talk about, then it's going to be slow. Okay, Whatever you set your mindset up as, positive or negative, whatever direction you're going to push it, it's likely going to follow. Because when our emotions make a decision, our brain is constantly looking for evidence to support that emotional decision. Emotion says, it's going to be slow. Brain says, yep, I'm going to find all the evidence to tell you why it is slow. So that's. Honestly, I think that's the number one reason why J Muntz get the bad rap is because it's a choice and it can be slow. Right? That's a choice we make. Last year, I really got on this soapbox talking to several boutique owners about it. And the feedback I got after the J month was, I heard so many boutiques say, you know what? I had a record year or a record month, because I set it up that way. I was not going to let the J month happen to me. So that's what I want to cover today. I want to talk to you about three strategies you can use to avoid letting that J month happen to you. The J month mindset tip number one is remain excited. Okay? We're coming off the holidays, and it's so easy during the holidays to be excited. It's your biggest, busiest month of the year. But January comes and we're all like, oh, you know, like Pat or Debbie Downer on snl. We just aren't excited about business. We aren't excited about the weather, especially if you're from the Midwest. Preach. My husband is outside moving snow right now because we've got another three inches of snow, and we're preparing for a big blizzard this weekend, which is amazing, right? We are lacking vitamin D. People just aren't in their best moods and performing as their best selves. So it's easy to not be excited. But beyond that, as boutique owners, you guys know that you are always on the forefront of what's trending, right? You're always getting in new arrivals. You're constantly shopping. You're always looking for what's next. And although you're there in your own mind, your customer isn't often there. She's still loving the trend that you loved six months ago. And whatever is Old to you is still likely very new to her. And again, I tell you this because I'm from the Midwest, and so I know that trends get to us way later than everywhere else in the country, and that's okay. But just recognize there's still financial opportunity for you there. And to remain excited about something that's old means you could be putting a lot more money in your pocket. So anything that is aging, anything you have onesies, twosies of anything you're really not excited about, that's still coming in as a new arrival. When you're excited about it, your customers will be excited about it. So restyle it, reshoot it, repost it, go live. Be as busy as you are in your marketing in January, as you were in the fourth quarter and in December. Does that make sense? Right. It's really easy to say, I'm gonna slack off because I think it's gonna be slow. But this is when you have to go all in and you get more excited and you post more often. This is also such a great opportunity, I think, to really invest in upping our branding quality and our styling game. Right? When we are least excited about something. Sometimes it really challenges us mentally to think about, I hate this dang sweater. How am I gonna make it look cute, Right? And that's what our customers are always looking for. We think about how saturated the boutique market can become, right? I know lots of you have had those thoughts and conversations, but what sets you apart from the next boutique down the street is how you style things, how you brand your photo shoots, how you brand your live videos, right? So January is the perfect time to experiment and to really start to push the limits of what's comfortable for you and how to get that branding to the next level. So often boutiques will say, gosh, there's got to be, you know, a magic bullet to how I'm going to grow my business. There has to be, like, this magic answer. This one thing that I'm not seeing, right? This one tip that I'm missing. But a lot of times growth is doing the things that we already know we need to do that are right in front of us. Take better photos, style your photos more, do more product education. Really talk to your customers about fit and value and quality and styling tips and education. That's why they're coming to you over going to Amazon is because you can offer that service that these big box stores just can't offer. And your branding, your styling, your videos are really where that's going to show through. Yeah. Robin, Hot mess is definitely a style, and there's definitely a customer for that. I am your customer for that Hot mess. I totally agree. So own your style this month, up your branding game this month, and remain excited about those product products as they come in, even if you, like, deep down, aren't that excited about them. I use this example a lot of times, but many of you were around when there was the craze of the bubble necklace and the Chevron dress, right? Preach. If you remember the bubble necklace and the Chevron dress, I had, like, a bubble necklace in, like, five different colors, and the Chevron was everywhere. And now I just, like, puke when I see Chevron. Because I'm over it, right? We've done it too much. But one boutique that I think really crushed it during that time was modern vintage. And honestly, I could give Tori credit with Pink Lily, because I think they did a great job with this too. Even after the trend had clearly run its course, right? Like, we were really over Chevron. If you were in the industry, you just hated posting a Chevron picture. They kept launching it as a new arrival week after week after week. It was a restock. It was a new arrival, and it was because there was still people looking for it. So as long as they remained excited about it, their customers were still still excited about it. So keep the excitement high in your business throughout January. One last tip to share with you in terms of keeping the excitement high in January is remember this. If your customers are just not buying the way that they were in December, which they likely aren't, right. There's still opportunity in January, but it may not be your November or December. Usually November is higher. One thing to remember is this. Money follows eyeballs. Money follows eyeballs. So even if you aren't constantly selling something, the fact that you're consistently showing up and you are building engagement, that is more important than always asking for the sale. Does that make sense? This is a prime opportunity for you this month to ask more questions of your customers, to get to know them, to build a relationship with them. If you're a part of Retail Bootcamp, we do a lot of stuff. Surveys during this month. We kick that off in retail boot camp, doing surveys. This is the time to really build engagement. Because when that engagement's high and then people get the urge to start buying again in February, when it's like, I'm getting the heck out of Dodge because there's a lot of snow on the ground, actually, I'm probably gonna get the heck out of Dodge. Last year there was 56 inches of snow in February in Wisconsin. 56. It set a state record. I'm not going to be here during February. I'm just here to tell you your customer probably feels the same way, right? If she's ready to start traveling and getting the heck out of Dodge in February, she's going to be buying. Right? So we've got to build up the engagement in January so our reach is higher. Posts are circulating. We're getting engagement so that when they start to buy in February, the clicks are there and the conversions are there because they're seeing our content and seeing our posts just in the last couple days. I don't know what it is, but I've seen several of you guys that I follow and I'm friends with posting about removing inactive members in your group. Perfect timing. Now is definitely the time to do that inside of your Facebook groups because it's all about connecting with your customer and building that engagement and building that relationship. This month if someone's inactive, it's time to challenge them a little bit to get them active or get them off your list. Something that we do in January is we always clean up our email list. Anyone who has got a disengaged tag on our email list or hasn't opened the last however many emails will give them an opportunity to re engage. Otherwise we will clean our list. So something you can think about is really building that engagement rate this month. That's tip number one, right? Remain excited. Tip number two is this. We often think about the times that we have the most opportunity to quote unquote, build our business. We naturally think of the busy times in our business. Right? Does that make sense? You often think about I'm building my business most when I'm the busiest, November and December. But really that's not the is when it's not our busiest month. So January, February, yes. The middle of summer. I'm not going to call them J months because I already went on the soapbox about that. It's opportunity time. So if your customers, like I said, are engaging and they're not buying, which means you may have a little more time on your hands because retail goes like this. This is the time for you to dig into your data and to start to make some automations, start to make some changes and some choices based on what your data is telling you. So a couple things to think about this month. Number one, this is a great opportunity to segment your email list to segment your email list. So think about how can you clean up Your email list, if you haven't already, with who's local versus who's an online shopper. Right, not local, your customers. If you have an email program like Omnisend that allows tagging. Right. Tagging customers by some of your, like, say top three to four brands. Like if you have a household name brand, I'll use makeup junkie bags, for example, because it was, you know, they were so popular. If you're tagging your customer as like an avid makeup junkie buyer or an avid Judy Blue denim buyer, or a free people buyer. If you're able to tag those customers that are spending the top 20% right on those brands, tag them, segment them by brand. If you can segment your customers by size. Right. Great opportunity. If you have your curvy customer is always looking for new curvy pieces. I think the biggest trend in marketing in 2020 is personalization and how we can get to personalization. So segmentation is important to help us get there because now we can say to our curvy customer, hey, you know what, we've got this new collection that just dropped, or we've got this new model that's gonna help, like, speak to your questions and concerns and needs. We've got this thing that's just for you. Right. We make her feel so important because we speak to her as an individual rather than painting all of our customers with such a wide brush. Does that make sense? If you guys were at Western Summit or if you listened to the podcast this week, I Talked about my 2020 New Year's resolutions for the retail industry. And one of them was a huge resolution that curvy women matter. They matter much more than the props that we're giving them. The average size woman in America is a size 14. And most denim brands and most brands in general will go up to fit a size 12. Right. That's not real fair, is it? But I know that we kind of have a chicken and an egg problem in front of us where the brands really aren't producing a lot for Curves and the boutiques aren't really able to sell a lot for Curves. Your customers aren't buying because you don't have the selection or the trust yet. Right? So we kind of have to urge our brands and work together with our brands to help really build that side of the market and help assure them that there is a market there, they are willing to buy and we can show them the conversions because really it's a partnership. It's got to be a win win with our brands to Help serve that customer base. So huge opportunity. So think about how can I segment my list to really make the people on my list feel special, feel important, and feel heard. Curves. Maybe it's your boutique specializes in petites and extra smalls, right? Maybe your. Your boutique specializes in missy customers, right? A little higher priced, maybe a little older age demographic, customer, whatever it is, start to segment that list. This is also an opportunity to segment your best customers and really reward them. You know, we're so lost today in the digital age thinking about emails and text messages and Facebook messenger bots. They're great opportunities. But when's the last time you went to the post office and you got Happy Mail, Not Happy Meal? I mean, there's Happy Meals are great. Happy Mail. Usually when we open the post office box, it's bills. Like, bills, bills, bills. Just channeling my inner Beyonce. We don't get exciting things that we want to hang on to. Right. I think about when the mail comes and the kids are so excited when something is in the mail for them. Your customers could be the same way. There's a boutique that's near me that does a tremendous job at really utilizing mail, postcards, gift cards, lookbooks, all kinds of things. But she's segmenting off her best customers so she's not painting everyone again with the weight wide brush and, and spending money that she may or may not have. But she's really honing in on who needs mail, right. And then we're getting those lookbooks and those promotion items out. Another thing you can think about if you, no matter if you're online or you're brick and mortar, if you have a couple of like, branded postcards with your, your business, you know, logo photos, whatever you want to do on it, have it sitting behind your, your cash wrap or in your warehouse at the shipping station. And I know a lot of you are putting things inside of bags and inside of packages that you're sending, but think about having whatever the store associate is that help that customer. Or maybe it's someone on your marketing team. Or maybe it's somebody in shipping at the warehouse that's writing that postcard, right. But throwing it in another pile that's going to be mailed out two weeks later. The more you can surprise and delight your customers under promise over deliver. That's a great way to really stand out in your marketing in 2020, especially during a J month, right. When we have a little more time, a little more opportunity to do what we can to build engagement and cultivate the sale that's going to be coming in February and in March. A couple more ways you can really dig into your data in January is, you know, we've talked about segmenting your list. But, guys, I got to be honest. We got to talk about your reports, too, before we get to tax day, when I know a lot of you are going to be, like, banging your head off the table trying to fill out your taxes. I saw a post in the Facebook group this morning of a new boutique owner who was filling out her own taxes. If you're watching, my number one tip is to hire an accountant because nobody wants to fill out their own taxes. That's just, like, way too overwhelming. But there's an opportunity right now to really look back at your reporting and your bookkeeping for 2019 and really make a plan of how am I going to optimize it in 2020. And that's where the boutique boss planner really came came for us. How can we help hold everyone accountable to knowing their numbers? Not just like on a quarterly basis or whenever your accountant happens to send you a report, but on a daily basis? I heard this thing a really long time ago. I don't even know where I heard it, but it's so true. And that is only attract number grows. Only attract number grows. So for really ottoman about growing certain key areas of our business in 2020, we've got to make sure we're tracking those areas. It's not enough to just say, you know what, I'm gonna sell a million dollars or I'm gonna sell $5 million or I'm gonna increase my sales by whatever. We have to look at our numbers and work them backwards and say, if this is our sales goal, then what's my daily sales goal? What's my average order value goal? What's my units per transaction goal? What's my margin goal? And then how much traffic do I need to get to my site or into my store every single day in order to make that goal a reality? So dig into the reports so you can understand. Where are those numbers living in your reports? Where are you going to be committed to having a date with your numbers each and every week and really taking action based on what you learn in those reports? If you're running an aging report, the action you're going to take is you're going to work on your markdown strategy, right? If you're. I really hope with a planner that a lot of you have been encouraged understand what is my inventory on hand? Probably the most commonly asked question we got after we launched the Planner last year was where do I find my inventory numbers? Where can I find those? And we, I can tell you all the details of where to find them, right? I can ask you some questions on what's your point of sale? What's your e commerce system? And then we could get those numbers. But you've got to have inventory numbers and we've got to be able to read those reports because let me give you this analogy. I'm in Wisconsin, right? The dairy state. Imagine being a dairy farmer. Imagine being a dairy farmer and not knowing how many cows you have.